New secret JJ Abrams trailer to appear before Iron Man 2

Motion Captured broke the story today.

The last time Abrams pulled a stunt like this we got Cloverfield.  For those with horrible memories, here’s the original teaser for the eventual blockbuster:

Hopefully Super 8, the new project’s supposed title, will be as good as Cloverfield, and, more ugently, hopefully the movie it appears before isn’t a community theater fireworks show like Cloverfield‘s counterpart.

A new JJ Abrams movie is good news no matter what kind of dog-and-pony-show he uses to promote it.  I’m more than a little disappointed this news leaked, though.

Abrams is clearly interested in mystery and suspense in all that he does.  As we’ve seen over the last decade, the way movies are being marketed is changing.  It’s great to see filmmakers who engage with the traditionally ugly, corporate business of mass-marketing art in a fresh way that is consistent with their vision on a whole.  The Dark Knight‘s marketing made a nation of fanboys drool months before Heath Ledger’s untimely death piqued the rest of the country’s morbid curiosity.  It made fanboys drool because it was an extension of the film itself, before anybody saw a frame of the film itself.  Movie blogs, product placement, film-whoring in disparate places and mediums, these things aren’t going away.  Thankfully, there are a few filmmakers who understand that the audience they’re shooting for will have higher hopes for a film if the requisite 12-month marketing machine amounts to more than screaming in the public’s face over and over.

I remember taking my little cousin to see Transformers the weekend it was released.  When the 1-18-08 trailer ended he looked at me amazed and asked what it was about.  The fact that I had absolutely no clue resulted in us running home after the movie, only to find more riddles online.  HOW COOL IS THAT!?!  We were along for the ride and couldn’t wait to see where it took us–the fact that where it eventually took us was a place we wanted to go didn’t hurt either.

It’s coming again.  This time it’s been partially spoiled.  We still don’t really know anything about the movie itself.  Unfortunately, there just won’t be that moment before Iron Man 2 where you turn to the person next to you and ask, “wait…what the hell’s the title?”

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